Dear colleagues,
Please note the panel “Contesting the ‘emptiness’ of space. Towards an
anthropology of deserts” which will take place during the congress of the
IUAES (International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences)
in Bangkok (15-17th July 2015).
If interested, you may submit a paper proposal before February 15th via
the homepage of the congress where you will find the panel with the number
P4-04. The link to the homepage is: http://socanth.tu.ac.th/iuaes2015/
With kind regards,
The organizers of the panel
Chers collègues,
Je me permets d’attirer votre attention sur le panel « Contesting the
‘emptiness’ of space. Towards an anthropology of deserts » qui aura lieu
dans le cadre du colloque de l’IUAES (International Union of
Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences) à Bangkok (15-17 juillet 2015).
Si vous êtes intéressés, je vous invite à envoyer une proposition de
contribution aux organisateurs via le site du colloque où vous trouverez
le panel sous le numéro P4-04 avant le 15 février 2015. Le lien vers le
site est : http://socanth.tu.ac.th/iuaes2015/
Bien cordialement,
Les organisateurs du panel
Abstract
Contemporary spatial anthropology generally agrees that space is not fixed
or self-contained, but made, claimed, appropriated, contested and
negotiated. However, when space is investigated, anthropologists tend to
focus on populated places like cities, villages or houses. In this panel,
we would like to explore spaces that are commonly associated with the
absence of humans rather than with their presence: deserts. In fact, due
to their aridity and to extreme high or low temperatures, deserts are
characterized by their hostility to many forms of life. They are mostly
uninhabited, and the presence of people there seems to be rather
ephemeral. Travelers, for example, when crossing deserts, have to do it as
rapidly as possible. Furthermore, desert borderlands or some
no-man’s-land-like desert regions often depict open spaces far from the
reach of states. One could thus presume that deserts present only
disinterest for anthropology.
Our panel aims to contest this presumption by re-conceptualizing the
desert as a space of human activity such as migration, transport of goods,
smuggling, warfare, mining, tourism, hunting, etc. These activities
represent fleeting claims of space that are expressed by being on the move
more than by lingering in one place. Such “ephemerity” presents a
challenge for contemporary anthropology, which has to overcome and
re-imagine conventional “boundaries” linked to concepts, methods and
disciplines. Thus, concepts of space may be revisited and probably
widened. The question if single-sited methods are still sufficient in a
context of continuous mobility which relates the “local” to the “global”
may also be asked. Finally, interdisciplinary approaches including
sociology, geography, economics or politics become more and more important
when investigating territories, which are, due to the supposed absence of
men, not representing a classical field of research in anthropology. In
our panel, we would like to address these challenges by looking into how
communities are realizing and displaying their presence in the desert and
how desert-space is shaped by human action.
Dr. Tilman Musch
Ethnologie
Universität Bayreuth
95440 Bayreuth
Tel.: 0921 / 55-5103
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